


Prelude To A Grimm

by GreenGoth



Series: The Monrosalee Chronicles [1]
Category: Grimm (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hal & Muriel Neilson, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-23 06:00:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13781244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenGoth/pseuds/GreenGoth
Summary: Musings on Monroe's life before and on that fateful day when Nick exploded into it, what might have been going on behind the scenes, and possible answers for questions the Pilot left unanswered such as:What brought Monroe to live in Portland, across the country from his Halfmoon Lake, NH home town?What happened in his life before the Grimm turned it upside down and inside out?What possessed Monroe to crash through his living room window to take down the Grimm who was stalking him -- then INVITE HIM IN FOR A BEER?And when pressured by Nick, why did Monroe think the postman a likely suspect for kidnapping Robin Howell, and how did he know where the postman lived?  (I used info from a deleted scene on the Season 1 DVDs to inspire that one.)My story is crafted on Grimm lore from the series interwoven with events from the Pilot and my own imaginings.  Monroe's neighbors are named in honor of his wonderful portrayer's full name, Silas Weir Mitchell Neilson.Of course, I own nothing belonging to the wonderful creators/owners of Grimm -- just a devoted fan who wants more, more, more than they could give us in 6 years and 123 episodes!  May they someday give us many more....





	Prelude To A Grimm

**PRELUDE TO A GRIMM**

**October 28, 2011**.

Monroe woke to the dim gray dawn precisely two minutes before his phone alarm was set to go off, 5:43 AM, as was his habit. He reached up to the shelf atop the dark mahogany headboard, groped for the familiar device and turned off the alarm, but instead of rolling promptly out of bed as he usually did, lay there feeling strangely tired and unsettled.

It had been a restless night of violent, disturbing dreams or perhaps fragmented memories of the wild times – not unusual during the three nights of the full moon, and this was only the first. But the nightmares had been more intense than usual, waking him several times in the darkness to lie there breathing hard, tense and sweating, entangled in the rumpled sheets until his rational mind took over and reassured him that he was, indeed, safe at home in his own bed, not running feral in deep forest in fierce pursuit of something, someone, the blood lust driving him forward.

 _If tonight’s as rough as that one,_ he told himself, _I’d better call Doc Kramer about maybe adjusting some of my meds, at least during moontimes. But why now? Things have been going so well_ ….

The little bungalow was dark and quiet except for the steady ticking of his many clocks, upstairs and down. He lay still listening to the comforting drip of morning drizzle from the eaves beyond his windows down into the small back yard, and the calls and chatter of assorted wild birds going about their morning business.

 _Calming breaths. Ground and center._ Eyes closed again, he worked through the full body relaxation exercise, locating points of tension and purposefully observing and releasing them. Feeling better, he threw back the bedcovers and padded barefoot to the bathroom where he washed down his six morning medications with plenty of water.

He sighed as he buckled on the wide leather band of his wristwatch. Ten minutes off schedule. He should have the coffee set up to brew and be starting his Pilates by now. But he knew better than to ignore the warnings of his body and that sense of unease; the breathing and relaxation exercises were necessary this morning before he could properly start his day.

He pulled on his comfortable old plaid bathrobe and moccasin slippers against the morning chill and made his way downstairs to the homey kitchen, glancing out at the light rain and wisps of ground-hugging fog in the yard below his kitchen window while he set up the French press and poured filtered water into the kettle.

He hesitated over the selection of sustainably grown, locally roasted craft coffees, passing over the robust Stumptown Honduran dark roast he’d set out last night for a Ristretto Roasters medium Columbian blend. He measured two scoops of beans into the grinder instead of his usual three. _Probably better go easy on the caffeine this morning_ , he thought regretfully. _Maybe make it a latte. Keep it to two cups. But coffee’s a major food group, it’d be a shock to my system to skip it or just have one._

He went to his workshop, shed the robe and slippers and took the Pilates Transformer out of its corner, laying it down across the laminate plank floor. Within minutes the focus and concentration required for the sequence of precision exercises helped settle him mentally and physically, as always. His awareness of time suspended as he gave the exercises his full attention, and the hour flew past quickly.

But on his way upstairs for his shower, he realized he still felt a little edgy, with an odd sense of – what? _Foreboding_ came to mind, but he dismissed it. _That seems overly dramatic,_ he told himself dryly. _So I didn’t sleep that well; it’s just another ordinary day._

Mentally he ran the familiar list as he climbed the stairs to his bedroom and peeled off his sweaty PJ pants and T-shirt: Pilates, shower, coffee, read _The Oregonian_ over breakfast. Clean the kitchen. Finish packing three repaired watches for international shipment to his clients and run them to the post office, check his “Clocks By Monroe” P.O. Box to see if any new work or parts he’d ordered had come in. Grocery shop at the Food Front Co-op. Pick up more LED tea lights and assorted batteries for his Halloween yard decorations; the big night was only three days away! Home, put everything away, make lunch, eat, clean up. Work on clock repairs until the mail comes, then go to the bank if certain other clients really meant, “the check is in the mail”. If not, pray the checks show up tomorrow and get back to work until dinner. Clean up, maybe practice his cello awhile; that always mellowed him out.

 _Fire in the living room fireplace would be nice. Maybe spin some string quartets on the stereo. I could catch up on my horology journals, or maybe dive into that history of the Pennsylvania Deutsch before it’s due at the library. Though none of our family came in through Pennsylvania_ ….

It all sounded very soothing, just what he needed. Then he started having second thoughts about tonight’s plan for dinner.

_Hmm. Probably better stick with vegan chili instead of quiche, a mixed-green salad, croutons but no Parmesan, and one glass of Pinot Gris. Feeling twitchy like this, I’d better stay away from dairy or eggs or anything animal today._

The shower helped, steaming and full pressure, the 1930-vintage plumbing coming through for him this morning. The old house was in infinitely better shape than it had been when he bought it all those years ago, but a copper re-pipe was beyond his budget for now. Fortunately he knew an old-school Eisbiber plumber who specialized in keeping Portland’s many Craftsman and Victorian-era houses functioning well enough. Not everyone could afford to upgrade to modern standards.

Refreshed and dressed to go out into the Kehrseite world, he brewed his coffee and savored the first cup – with almond milk, not cream today, while he put breakfast together. He stepped out to retrieve the newspaper from the front walk while the blueberry quinoa pancake batter was beginning to form bubbles in the skillet.

Walking down to the parkway, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise and that feeling of unease surge sharply again. He looked around quickly, drawing a long breath in through his sensitive nose. No unfamiliar or disturbing scents, no one on the street, no unfamiliar cars parked in the cul-de-sac. _What the hell’s going on with me?_

“Mornin’, Monroe.”

He started inwardly at the familiar voice to his right coming from the porch next door, then schooled himself to turn calmly and greet his neighbor. “Morning, Hal. Coming out to get all the good news?” He smiled as the vigorous white-haired man, his posture still military straight under his yellow windbreaker, stepped off his porch and strode out to retrieve his own copy of the local paper.

Hal Neilson grinned and gave a quick nod as he shook rainwater off the plastic-wrapped paper. “Best to know what’s coming, so we can be ready for it!” He looked up at the leaden sky. “Hope it clears up a bit for Halloween. The grandkids are all hyper to go out for Trick-or-Treat. Especially at your place!”

Monroe’s smile broke into a pleased grin. “Hope I don’t disappoint. Have you heard anything from Samantha?”

“She’s settling into her new deployment. Talked to us and the kids over Skype a couple times till her unit moved too far out in the countryside to get service. She’s hoping to get some leave time after the new year.”

“It’s gotta be tough on all of you, her being away so much. Especially over the holidays.”

“Well, they’re Army brats, they know the score. At least they’ve got us till she gets stationed somewhere they can be with her; they’ll be old enough soon. When they lost their dad it was a done deal she was going to stick it out till retirement. She’ll hit twenty years in 2017.” His gruff upbeat tone changed. “Muriel worries, though. We’d all be glad if they sent her somewhere outside the Middle East.”

Monroe grimaced and nodded his sympathy to his neighbor, not knowing what else to say. The Neilsons had been raising their three grandchildren for years now, even before he’d moved to the neighborhood.

Then that ominous feeling snaked through him again and he scanned the quiet street warily.

“You expecting somebody at this hour?” Hal missed very little.

“No. Just…something feels kind of off. It’s probably me.”

The older man chuckled. “Yeah, you’re kind of off, but in a good way. Best thing that happened in years around here when you moved in and cleaned up the old wreck.” He nodded to Monroe’s tidy blue-gray bungalow. “A few more years of neglect and it would’ve been a scraper. No wonder all the tenants were such lowlife assholes!”

“Glad to be an improvement.”

“Hey, told you before, we couldn’t let the kids play in the backyard without supervision with the kinds of creeps they had living there. Once we got to know you it was a brand new day; we knew the kids were perfectly safe out there, especially since you’re mostly home all day.”

 _Not if you had the slightest idea what’s living next door to you,_ Monroe thought, but he kept his neighborly smile fixed on his face. “Well, you and Muriel sure made me feel welcome.” He shook raindrops off his own newspaper. “Gotta get back in and flip those pancakes.”

“Sure thing. Have a good one.” Hal opened the paper and stood scanning it on the sidewalk, enjoying a few quiet moments away from the clamor of Muriel getting the grandkids ready for school before he had carpool duty.

 

The purple pancakes browned nicely in the fragrant coconut oil while Monroe finished cutting up some mango and pineapple for vitamin C and fiber. He set the dinette table properly as his daily ritual required – folded cloth napkin, utensils laid out just so, the food plated in an appealing manner. He sat down to enjoy his breakfast, smoothing the napkin in his lap and drizzling a little agave syrup over the thick stack of vegetable protein powder-enriched pancakes. Wieder and vegetarian or not, he had a healthy Blutbad appetite and knew the crucial importance of not letting his body get too hungry; that stimulated the creature within and its dangerous cravings he worked so diligently to suppress.

He glanced at his watch as he reached for his second cup of coffee, pleased to see that he was now back on schedule. Breakfast would be finished by 8:30. He drew comfort from the familiar routine, the ticking of his many clocks, the soothing colors and textures of the walls, floors and furnishings of his sanctuary, his refuge so thoroughly imprinted with his very personal and eccentric decorating. Not for the first time, he looked around from his vantage point at the small round table into the kitchen and living room, the short hall behind the stairs and the archway into the front door entry and thought to himself with satisfaction, _The inside of my house looks like the inside of my head. When my head’s on straight, anyway._

It had been a long, difficult process bringing the derelict 1930 bungalow back to habitable life. He closed his eyes and let the images of the place as it was when he first bought it flood his memory.

Like so many students of intellectual bent and liberal arts interests, he’d emerged from six years of intense study with BAs in double majors and a graduate degree from Brown without the foggiest idea what he was going to do with his life and all that education, or how to solve the gnarly problem of using that esoteric knowledge to make a living. So he kept doing what he’d been doing all the way through college to help pay his expenses – repairing and building clocks.

The folks back home in Halfmoon Lake assumed he’d join the family business, become the junior partner to his internationally known horologist uncles and aunt and eventually take over when they retired – not that the many horologists on both sides of his family ever truly retired from it, timepieces being a lifelong passion (bordering on obsession) as well as occupation for generations.

Even his father Bart kept his hand in on the side while running his own successful civil engineering business. When some of the family and neighbors made remarks about Bart and Alice wasting so much money putting Monroe through college only for him to come home and resume the clock business, Bart retorted bluntly, “Education is never wasted! The boy’ll figure out his path. It took me awhile to find mine, and I made out just fine! Better than _you,_ by the way.”

Alice, a dedicated, highly respected (or else!) teacher, whole-heartedly agreed, proud that their only child was such an academic success – especially given his social peculiarities.

He’d moved across country a few months after graduation, needing a clean break from six years of academia and a fresh start away from the too-familiar New Hampshire small town where he’d grown up, enmeshed in his family pack and the broader Wesen and Kehrseite community with its limited opportunities, tourist-dependent economy and lack of privacy in a community where everybody seemed to know too much of everybody else’s business.

Portland’s eccentric reputation, diversity and Pacific Northwest environment attracted him, in particular its unique evolving subcultures and the vast forests surrounding and penetrating the city itself. Monroe had felt a profound need to rediscover himself in a completely new place, in particular his long-neglected Blutbad self, sidelined by so many years of intensive study in densely urban Northeastern cities. A place where no one knew him yet, where he could become his own person, pursue his beloved occupation, enjoy the local culture and, out in the deep old-growth forests, let his Wesen-self run free.

Musing over his coffee and the last bites of fruit, Monroe remembered the shabby little work/live unit he’d rented alongside an eclectic assortment of other craftspeople, musicians and artists in an aging warehouse in the Pearl, just before it became “the Pearl” and gentrification took over.

It had been an exciting, stimulating time, a completely different life than he’d experienced before. And as he’d hoped and suspected, other Wesen had migrated to Portland for reasons much like his own. The community was well-established generations before he arrived, though more recently flooded with diverse new migrants who didn’t necessarily abide by “creature community” mainstreaming norms or even the Codex rules.

You had to watch yourself, especially in sketchy neighborhoods like his.

He’d met Ned and Sam and a few other like-minded young Blutbaden hanging out at the local Wesen-run brew pubs and immensely enjoyed their backcountry hunting trips, so different from running with his family pack but all of them good guys and gals, none bogged down in pack hierarchy mentality or wanting to hunt anything but the “legal stuff”. Their parties around the campfire, pre- and post-hunt, had been epic. Saved on the grocery bills, too.

His business grew steadily and he was frugal, saving enough for a decent down payment by the time new owners evicted everyone from the warehouse units to make way for redevelopment.

 _A home and territory of my own. Enough already with dorm and apartment life._ He wanted something like his family home, just not as big, and close to the wild like their New Hampshire neighborhood, not hemmed in by blocks and blocks of other houses, streets and businesses. _And the more I looked, the more I knew I wanted a Craftsman bungalow. Something about them resonates with me, the way the rooms flow and connect, the builder’s use of natural materials, artisanal tile and subtle, earthy colors._

Problem was, lots of people wanted Craftsman bungalows, and prices in decent neighborhoods were way beyond his budget.

His real estate agent, a very practical and rather wily Waschbär, suggested they start checking out probate and foreclosure sales, “if you’re willing put in some serious sweat equity”.

_Just how serious, I’d never imagined, until she took me to see the dilapidated little shed roof bungalow on Ravensview._

Sandwiched between two much larger, well-kept homes of the era, it hunched under wildly overgrown trees and shrubbery, its roof a crazy quilt of patches, its paint peeling and shaggy weed-grown yard strewn with trash and debris.

“Whoa, what the hell happened here?”

“Casualty of long-term neglect and a contentious probate. It’s been a rental for decades, not maintained very well, and then the owner died and his kids contested his will. They’ve been at each other’s throats, legally and sometimes literally, for three years now, all of them wanting his better properties and neglecting this one.” She shook her head at the mess and the waste of a good house. “Wait till you see inside. It’s a shame the place has come to this…but it could be a unique opportunity for you.”

"So it’s still in probate?”

“Finally settled and the court’s ordered prompt sale of the assets. The last tenants vacated a week ago. Well, relocated to The Graybar Motel, if you catch my drift. They were a nest of Jay-huffing Skalengecks and their lives of crime caught up with them. I quit showing the house while they were there. Good riddance.”

“Oh, great. So their skeezy friends are likely to come around looking for them.”

The agent smirked through a quick _woge_ of her gray and black-masked furry face behind her stylish black-framed glasses. “Not once they got a whiff of _you_ in residence,” making Monroe laugh in appreciation.

He wasn’t laughing after he saw what generations of increasingly bottom-feeding tenants had done to the inside of house. Recoiling from that memory, he opened his eyes and came back to the present, marveling at the healing he and the bungalow had experienced together.

Finished with the major articles, he folded _The Oregonian_ open to local news and a small article caught his unwilling attention. A Reed College coed had been savagely murdered just off the Talon Creek Trail yesterday while out for her early morning run. The Forest Service and the Portland Police Bureau were investigating it as a possible wild animal attack but weren’t ruling out human involvement. Monroe’s brow furrowed as he read that part again. They were asking the public to come forward with any tips or information; an anonymous hotline number was given.

 _Damn. Probably Wesen_. He shook his head and flipped the page.

 

As Monroe finished his breakfast and read the paper, on the far side of the large wooded park across his street a little girl was dropped off at school with her mother’s daily reminder to go straight to Grandpa’s house after school, stay on the sidewalk, walk with friends as far as she can, and don’t go into the park. Robin Howell listened but secretly planned to walk with her friends through the park as they often did – it was so much shorter that way, and they were big girls now, third graders. She shouldered her purple backpack over her red hoodie and waved goodbye as her mom drove off to work, then joined the swarm of kids heading into the school.

 

Following his long-established regimen without needing to think about it, Monroe cleaned up after breakfast, finished his second cup of coffee and went to start his working day in his very personalized, impeccably orderly home workshop. His main worktable against one wall had disassembled clock parts arrayed around the brass frame carcass of his current patient, with an assemblage of the various tools and magnifiers he was using for this particular job.

It was an antique torsion pendulum anniversary clock that fit inside a tall crystal bell jar, with four spinning balls on a horizontal axis at its bottom that acted as its pendulum. The clock had an unusual complication, a dial atop its face displaying the sun, moon and stars that moved throughout the day in tandem with the hour and minute hands, indicating the passage from day to night and back again as the celestial objects turned, dipping below the horizon of their half-circle opening in the clock face and emerging again on its opposite side as the day waxed and waned.

It was a unique and peculiar specimen of its kind, and its owner was obsessively fond of it despite its need for frequent maintenance and repairs. Monroe was fond of it _because_ of those needs, and enjoyed the income and the challenge of keeping the balky thing with its poor internal design functioning. Its owner was adamant that she didn’t want the inner workings modernized or replaced, just kept as it was originally made when it came into her family over a century ago.

 _Clock folk tend to be a peculiar breed,_ he thought as he settled at his worktable, pulling on the protective leather apron with its years of clock oil and solvent drips. _The ones in our family sure are._

He glanced out the front window just as Hal pulled into the Neilson’s driveway after making his carpool run. The Delgado family on his other side had all left for work and school earlier and wouldn’t be home until late; it seemed their brood of kids must participate in every sport the local schools offered, plus music lessons, dance lessons and drama. The neighborhood would be empty and quiet the rest of the day until school let out.

 

At the downtown police precinct, a troubled young detective sipped his morning coffee without tasting it and tried to focus his attention on the Sylvie Oster trailside murder case; his special intuition told him forcefully that it was no animal attack. Especially with the strange things he’d been seeing since yesterday, things that made him doubt his sanity until the brutal attack on his cancer-stricken aunt in the street outside his own house last night.

Nick Burkhardt closed his eyes against the hideous image of the monstrous man-creature he’d fought beside his valiant Aunt Marie, now in intensive care from her injuries on top of the ravages of her disease. For the first time in his law enforcement career, he’d had to shoot and kill a perp, while off-duty at that. And he couldn’t begin to tell his colleagues what Hulda really was.

And what did it really mean to be a Grimm? He needed more time to talk very privately with Marie so she could help him understand this weird thing that was happening to him. She’d barely made a start outside his house when Hulda’s attack brought home the truth of the bizarre things she was telling him, and during the brief visit he was allowed last night at the hospital. Time was something his beloved aunt was running out of rapidly.

_What they wrote about really happened...everything’s in my trailer…there’s so much you still don’t know…._

That trailer. He’d think Marie was into collecting all kinds of eccentric folklore, except that he’d just seen some of the creatures in her weird books himself, starting yesterday.

He made himself focus on the open file in front of him. The DNA of the attacker was inconclusive. Even the forensics lab couldn’t say if the killer was man or animal. He felt the muscles in his back spasm from tension and shifted sideways in his chair to ease the stress on them.

_What the hell had savaged and eaten Sylvie Oster?_

 

At 10:30 Monroe put down his tools, took off the magnifying headset and shed the leather apron. It was time to run his errands so he’d be back home by one to make his lunch.

He settled the three boxes prepped for international shipment on the front seat of his yellow ’74 Bug and tossed a rain jacket on top of them just in case he ran into more of Portland’s famous liquid sunshine during his rounds. Umbrellas were for tourists.

He took a deep breath of the cool, damp air and surveyed the neighborhood briefly before folding his tall frame into the little car. Everything smelled fresh and rain-washed, but still that nagging sense of threat persisted. He felt both exposed outside the sanctuary of his house and relieved to get outdoors and move around a bit, see something beyond the confines of his block. Cabin fever was a definite side effect of his regimen, his self-imposed solitary lifestyle.

It felt good to drive into the old heart of the city, post his packages with the familiar, jovial gray-ponytailed clerk at the counter and check out the contents of his P.O. Box. One payment, cash, in Euros; so many of his Old World clients were old school as well. He figured in the current exchange rates when quoting prices to those customers.

No matter, his favorite teller Kendra at First Cascadian was used to converting his foreign payments into deposits he could actually use. It had sparked their initial conversations about the curious nature of his business, and the warm-hearted woman with her myriad elaborate braids and rich, friendly voice never failed to greet him by name with a broad smile and ask how things were going. He looked forward to his cordial transactions with her and would waive his place in line to ensure he got to deal with her. It was a casual business friendship he treasured, his contact with other people was so restricted.

Well, maybe later this afternoon, if the other two checks he was expecting showed up in his home mail.

Hitting the Co-Op before the office workers got their lunch breaks, he stocked up on a selection of favorite craft beers, one of his few indulgences. That, and his taste for premium Willamette Valley wines. He told himself that as a sole proprietor, he knew the importance of supporting small, independent local businesses.

He again felt his gratitude that alcohol in moderation had proved not to be one of his triggers, once he’d regained balance and control of his Blutbad impulses through religiously working his program; his support group out at Helvetia Tavern referred jokingly to the rural roadhouse as their “church”, and not without some truth to the term. For each of them, the wieder program had been, would always be, their salvation.

At least he hadn’t had to give up all his pleasures to keep his sanity and stay out of trouble. And he’d learned to cultivate a host of new ones in compensation, something his therapists and mentors had encouraged. Too strict a regimen, devoid of rewards and enjoyments beyond just iron control of the beast within, was doomed to failure, they insisted; they’d seen it happen too many times, and by now so had he.

 _That’s what I tell myself when I indulge in all this locally roasted coffee, try out exotic ingredients in my cooking and add expensive toys to my collections_ , he told himself as he browsed through the displays. But he knew it to be true.

Still, while he enjoyed them, he felt solitary and disconnected on his forays through the city. He could only relax and feel comfortable at home or with his wieder fellow travelers at Helvetia. After sequestering himself so long away from normal life since completing the in-patient rehab, his already shaky social skills had further atrophied.

He’d always been different, had trouble connecting with people and reading social cues. His mother had noticed early on and worked to teach him how to watch, listen and act in ways that came naturally to other people, but he’d needed frequent reminders.

His enthusiasms had always been intense and overwhelming, his eagerness to share them all in excruciating detail off-putting, especially since he seldom realized that the recipients of his effusive monologues had long since stopped listening, unable to get a word in edgewise or stop the overflow of information, or sometimes sidled away before he’d noticed. Neighbors, classmates and even family members were known to avoid him to escape getting caught in one of his excited tirades.

_Make eye contact, but don’t stare, that’s aggressive. Look at them frequently; see if they’re still with you. Give them a chance to speak, and then listen; understand what they’re saying. Nod and smile while they’re talking to you. When you hear a silence, it’s your turn to respond. Don’t bury them with every detail you can think of._

He could still hear his mother’s calm but definite tone of voice, reminding him to watch for other people’s reactions and learn their cues, coaching him through awkward situations. Eventually he’d internalized most of it and managed to get along well at school and make some friends. But sometimes he was still aware of that programmed inner voice reminding him how to connect with other people and not get lost in his own world.

He turned his small shopping cart away from the meat aisle, avoided even glancing at the displays of raw animal flesh. Hunting had been the hardest thing to give up, even harder than eschewing meat from his diet altogether. The camaraderie, the chase, the smells and sounds and textures of the forest, the exhilaration of running full out, wind and rain and even snow on his face, in his hair…his fur.

Monroe squeezed his eyes shut and mentally shook himself out of that train of thought. _Not today, especially!_ he told himself sternly. _Can’t afford to stimulate that kind of thing with whatever’s going on with me right now._

Forcing focus, he quickly finished his necessary shopping and hauled his canvas bags to the car. Best to go home. Now.

 

Robin bounced over to the cafeteria table where she always sat with her best friends for lunch. The third-graders had been friends since kindergarten and giggled and shrieked excitedly while they emptied their lunch bags and shared some of their food. Amy and Lauren were wearing their scout uniforms.

“We have a Brownie meeting after school,” Lauren said, giving Robin an exaggerated frown and pushing out her lower lip. “So we can’t walk home with you today. I wish you could join our troop, it’s really fun.”

“My grandma’s bringing the refreshments. It’s our turn,” Amy said proudly.

“I’ll ask my mom again,” Robin said, her voice doubtful. Disappointed, she frowned too. None of her other friends walked home the same way. She’d have to walk alone.

 

Arriving home with his groceries, Monroe parked at the top of his steeply sloping driveway close to the kitchen door staircase. Looking across the yard he saw Muriel on her kneeling pad, tending her lush garden between rain showers. She gave him a merry wave and he waved back, grocery bag in hand. He noticed with a touch of chagrin that his front yard was looking shaggy compared to the Neilsons’ and Delgados’ tidy green lawns.

 _Gotta get on that, maybe tomorrow,_ he thought. He wasn’t a lawn fanatic. “If it’s green, let it grow. When you have to, mow,” was his garden mantra, but he made sure to keep things trimmed in accord with the neighborhood aesthetic. He paused while pulling the third bag from his car, remembering his first contact with his kindly neighbors.

It hadn’t started too kindly. And the house and yard had been far from the neighborhood aesthetic.

The inside had been a disaster of damaged walls and flooring, peeling layers of wallpaper, cheap broken furniture, filthy discarded clothes and diseased-looking mattresses left decaying on the floors. The last tenants had graffitied walls with weird symbols and drug-addled visions of their jacine fumes lingering over flaming pots, taking on a distorted, vaguely female form in the rising vapors. It looked like they’d held _trauminsels_ right there in the house, leaving scorch marks on the floors of the front rooms and bedrooms upstairs – it was a wonder they hadn’t burned the place down.

On taking possession, Monroe had shoveled out the kitchen and adjoining dinette enough to have a place to eat, and set up camp in the living room near the fireplace. Literally. There was no other functioning heat or decent place to sleep.

He and his agent had worked with the lender and the city to devise a win-win agreement to rescue the long-term nuisance property, and now he had to make good, quickly. The indoor cosmetic repairs would have to wait.

He first met Hal Neilson while wading through tall weeds to pick up trash from the front yard. He already had a half dozen bulging trash bags tied up and was near to filling another when the forthright old man came striding over to the lot line, looking at Monroe with undisguised suspicion.

“You the new tenant?” The tone was stern, challenging.

“Ah, no, actually, I, uh, just bought the place.”

“So you’ll be the new landlord.” The neighbor regarded him with lowered brows and an assessing stare.

“I’m going to live here. Bought it for myself.” He looked over at the forlorn bungalow and around the trash-strewn yard. “Kinda got my work cut out for me for the next few weeks…months…maybe years.”

“You alone?”

“Yup, just me. No roomies. Work from home, mostly.” He remembered his mother’s social coaching and deeply instilled New England manners. “I’m Monroe, by the way. Good to meet you.” He put down the trash bag and pulled off his right work glove, extending his hand to the old man as he walked over.

To his relief the man took it, giving it a firm shake. “Hal Neilson. Wife’s Muriel. We’ve lived here since our kids were little, seen a lot of changes, people come and go. Some good,” he looked pointedly at Monroe’s blighted property, “some not so good. You’re fixing it up yourself?”

“Sweat equity, the agent called it. Not all – loan company’s requiring a new roof, fix the plumbing and electrical, all with permits. Had to set aside an escrow account for that.”

Hal nodded, his guarded stance easing a bit as he assessed his new late-twenty-something neighbor. He decided the earnest young man with his neatly groomed dark hair and beard looked more hipster than hippy. “You gonna flip it?”

“What? No….no, I want a home, a place to run my business, settle down. Totally sick of being a renter.” He fished his wallet out of his back pocket and tugged out a business card, offering it to Hal.

Hal glanced at it and looked up. “Clocks? You can make a living fixing clocks?”

“Family’s been doing it for generations. Like the card says, new, repairs, appraisals, renovations. Not talkin’ cheap digitals, here.”

Hal glanced down at his own large, complicated watch, a vintage Cartier he’d bought as a young man as a token of his first real success. He nodded curtly. “I’m with you there. You said you work at home?”

“Mostly. Main workshop’ll be in the front room right of the door, messier stuff on a bench in the garage. I do make house calls, though – some of my patients are too huge to move, or way up a tower.”

At last Hal cracked a smile. “Never thought about that, sure. You’re gonna have a lot of people come and go, then?”

“Not really. Most of it’s by mail or UPS, or I go pick it up locally. I like my privacy, something I had precious little of in the place I was renting.”

Hal nodded, apparently reassured. “Where you from? Back east somewhere?”

“Got me. New Hampshire, by way of too many years of college around the northeast. Been in Portland a couple years now; I love it here. Where else do you have the forest run right into the city?” Monroe looked across the street, then out over the roofs of their houses. “One of the things I liked right away about this place is the big park over there, and the forest running right up to the back lot line. Not too many houses closing us in; no space for new development. Real quiet.”

“In the city without feeling like you’re in the city. We liked that, too. Maybe with you next door, the neighborhood’ll be quiet again. We’ve had some real bad actors roosting over there. Couldn’t let the grandkids go outside without us watching every minute, and creeps kept throwing nasty crap over the fence just to mess with us. Used needles, condoms, literal crap -- you name it. We’ve got the local cop shop on speed dial, and they know if we call, they’ve got business.”

“Whoa. I am so sorry to hear that. But it sure fits with what I’m finding inside. Almost a hazmat situation.”

“Better wear a mask and gloves, make sure all your shots are current.”

“No kidding. I’ve got a dumpster coming first thing next week. Trying to get all the smaller stuff bagged so I can fill it up and get it out of here fast.”

“Much appreciated, and I can tell you the neighbors will be real glad to see all this junk go.” Hal looked him up and down. “Hope you live up to your first impression. Welcome to the neighborhood.”

And with that the self-appointed guardian of Southwest Ravensview Drive walked back to his house to share the news with his co-guardian Muriel, who showed up at Monroe’s door an hour later with a basket of fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies and open curiosity about her new neighbor.

Monroe graciously accepted the food gift from the slender, silver-haired lady and apologized for not inviting her in, waving at the barren living room and remaining clutter of broken furniture awaiting removal. “I’d ask you in but there’s literally nowhere to sit. I need to finish the cleanout before I move my stuff from storage.”

“Roughing it, then,” Muriel said. “Well, we’ll have a proper welcome wagon visit when you’re all moved in.”

“Thank you for the cookies,” he said earnestly. “I love chocolate chip, and I’m not much of a baker myself.” Which at that time was true. He had long been grateful for the Neilsons’ welcome and support when he was new to the neighborhood.

 

He came back to the present as Muriel nodded and smiled at him, then went back to her weeding. Monroe carried his groceries into the house and shut the door, his sanctuary closing in around him.

 

By one o’clock his lunch was prepared and he again sat down at the properly set table to enjoy his avocado and heirloom tomato sandwich on artisanal whole grain rosemary olive bread, cup of garlicky lentil soup, sliced apples with almond butter and a glass of crisp sauvignon blanc. His clocks ticked loudly in the silent house and several chimed the hour. He listened closely to tell which of them needed to be better synchronized; it was all but impossible to get them all to go off simultaneously with their different works and winds, but he tried to get them as close as he could.

 _How obsessive_. But to him, it mattered.

 _And this is what my life is about now?_ He shook his head, trying to dismiss the thought. _Regret is deadly. One day at a time. Find your small pleasures and forge your own meanings in life. Alone doesn’t have to mean lonely._

All the catch phrases and aphorisms had begun to ring hollow for him after so long self-immured in his strict wieder regimen and solitary life.

His home, his work, his cultivated pleasures in food and drink, his clocks, model trains, cameras and other collections, his intentionally superficial connections with other people – it just wasn’t enough any more. At what price sanity and self-control? But the alternative was deadly.

_Violence, mayhem, death, prison. Losing everything. Disgracing my family. Breaking my parents’ hearts. Better a solitary life, doing useful work, being a good neighbor and solid citizen, giving back to the rehab program that saved me. This is penance for the death and destruction I caused when I lost myself, a life sentence of restraint and restriction. It’s better than I deserve._

The sandwich was suddenly dry and tasteless, but he finished it anyway. _Feed the body, nourish the brain_.

Time to get back to work.

He settled with his laptop by the workshop window, curtains and sheers pulled back with a clear view of the neighborhood and the edge of the park across the street. _Am I on the outside looking in, or the inside looking out? Either way, I’m an observer, not a participant_. But like the Neilsons, he kept a close eye on any activity on their block. Not that anything ever happened here; they wanted to keep it that way.

He spent a half-hour searching online for parts he needed for his next repairs, responding to clients’ e-mails and one from Alice tagged, “Do you still live? Call your mother!”

All his windows were closed against the chill October air, but his extraordinary Blutbad sense of smell picked up the scents of rain-damp pavement, incense cedars in the park and a whiff of exhaust from a recently passed vehicle. Then a rank odor of decayed flesh and gore assaulted his nostrils, foul yet dangerously stimulating.

He looked up to see the postman walking his route in his measured steps, just coming into view at the Delgados’ lot line.

Monroe wrinkled his nose and held his breath, watching the unassuming man stop at his neighbors’ mailbox, reach in for the outgoing mail, and replace it with their delivery, almost robotic in his ritualized motions.

From the first day this postman had started on their route, Monroe knew by his scent that despite his bland, mild-mannered demeanor, this was no wieder Blutbad. He made a point of never being outside when the postman was due to come by. Nothing good would come of such an encounter.

Bad enough that he had to tolerate this one’s intrusion on his territory along his sidewalk and touching his mailbox; something about the man set off Monroe’s “bad vibe” radar, an instinct he’d learned to trust long ago. Of course, the postman knew this was another Blutbad’s territory; he could smell Monroe’s markings as surely as Monroe could smell him passing by. But the postman had always gone about his business in his placid way, doing nothing to directly offend.

Monroe had been disturbed enough to find out the postman’s name from the gray-ponytailed clerk at the post office, then put out discrete enquiries about this guy through his old friends Sam Leoni, Ned Klosterman, the ever-gregarious Hap Lasser and the Blutbaden members of his Helvetia Tavern support group. He’d been very unsettled to find out the postman was a distant cousin from a branch of his own family he knew to be particularly unreconstructed, so to speak. A distant cousin twice removed ( _Should be completely removed_ , Monroe thought) who might well know of their tenuous family connection. A substantial number of the man’s kin were doing serious time in prison, or had met violent ends.

Alice did not send them greeting cards or invitations to the holidays.

The postman was particularly ripe today. The scent of raw flesh and blood he was slowly digesting hung in the air around him, a miasma of savage death. He’d fed heavily, and recently – very recently. On what, Monroe didn’t want to speculate.

He watched the large, stolid man tread his way from his neighbors’ house to his own mailbox, open it, and deposit several envelopes. Then for the first time in the years he’d been delivering Monroe’s mail, the postman looked up and made direct eye contact with him through his workroom window.

His bland expression didn’t change, but for an instant, his eyes flashed red. Monroe was stunned, then furious, at the blatantly aggressive message: _**I know what you are, you know what I am. Beware**_.

Then the postman closed the mailbox, turned his gaze to the sidewalk ahead, and made his placid way over to the Neilsons.

 _What the hell was that? After all this time?_ He watched the man’s progress down the street until he passed out of sight, struggling with his defensive instincts to answer the other Blutbad’s unspoken challenge.

Monroe decided to wait longer than usual to retrieve his mail after that display. Not for the first time, it troubled him that the postman knew a lot more about him than he’d like – his name and address, obviously, but also what kinds of correspondence he sent and received. His business, his interests, his family – Alice was fond of writing long letters and sending cards for any and all occasions, and Uncle Felix occasionally sent him news of the family still in Germany, in German of course.

The postman’s repulsive, seductive scent hung heavily in the air, and would cling even longer to the envelopes he’d delivered. _That’s the last thing I need to be smelling today, the way I’m feeling. If those checks are there, I’ll just have to deposit them tomorrow_.

He turned back to give the gutted dome clock his purposely focused attention, and was senseless to time for the next two hours.

 

The school bell rang dismissal at 3:00 PM and the first-through-sixth graders spilled out through the gates to their waiting carpools, hopped on their bicycles or gathered on the sidewalk to meet up with friends and walk home.

Robin Howell started down the sidewalk alone, missing her friends and wishing it wasn’t such a long walk to Grandpa’s by herself. It didn’t seem so long when she was laughing and talking to Amy and Lauren most of the way. Especially when they cut through the park.

She felt hungry and had a lot of homework. Grandpa made the best after-school snacks and always let her watch TV or play on his computer for awhile before she had to pull her assignments out of her backpack and start her work. And it looked like maybe it was going to rain some more.

Skirting the corner of the park, she skipped past the postman, taking no notice of the uniformed man she’d seen so often on her way home from school; he was just part of the scenery. The hood of her favorite red jacket bounced with each skip.

Nor did she notice when he stopped, turned, and followed her at a distance down the sidewalk.

She paused at the entrance to the park and lingered there, twisting the toe of one shoe on the pavement in indecision. Then she made up her mind and turned onto the broad path through the trees and ferns that led through the center of the park.

 

Nick stood in the doorway of his aunt’s Intensive Care room in the late afternoon, looking down at her still form with so many tubes and monitors attached and listening to the steady huff and whir of the ventilator over her nose and mouth as Doctor Rose explained that she had fallen into a deep coma.

He deeply regretted leaving so meekly last night when the doctor told him time was up, just when Marie had been telling him about this bizarre other world he was starting to experience and his dangerous inherited role in it. He needed so desperately to hear everything Marie could tell him about this strange and terrible change overcoming him.

Scars all over her body, the doctor’d said. Like knife wounds. He shook his head in stunned amazement. After his parents died, he’d grown up with Marie from the age of twelve until he went off to college, never having the slightest clue about her secret other life. A librarian, indeed – with her own uniquely peculiar private library in that battered old trailer.

His phone trilled. “Yeah?” Hank, of course. “On my way.”

A little girl had gone missing on her way home from school. Family’s search of the neighborhood turned up nothing. None of her friends had seen her after she started walking to her grandfather’s house.

Captain Renard called an all-hands briefing and sent them off with maps, Robin’s photo and their sections to search.

Hank’s world-wise suspicion that the child had disobeyed and cut through the park proved all too true. At his insistence, they had diverted into the park from their assigned search section. Hank took the Mill Pond path while Nick searched Hollyberry Trail, his senses heightened and nerves on edge as Marie’s dire warnings whispered in his head. _You need to be careful. You’re vulnerable now. This isn’t a fairy tale._

“Nick! I got something here!”

Nick raced back, following his partner’s voice; Hank had found Robin’s purple backpack under a clump of ferns. Then things went from very bad to infinitely worse.

Nick found boot prints in the rain-soaked soil just like the ones by Sylvie Oster’s dismembered body.

“He took her this way!” Nick launched into the woods, following the boot prints as best he could through the thick ferns and concealing forest duff while Hank called for backup.

 

Monroe reached a good stopping point on the anniversary clock repair and decided to take a break, stretch a little and go out to collect his mail. He stepped out on his porch and took a quick sniff. The postman’s scent had mostly faded; he’d passed by well over two hours ago. Grateful for the warmth of his thick gray sweater in the October drizzle, Monroe proceeded down his porch steps and out to the mailbox, turning his back to the sidewalk as he reached in to retrieve its contents.

The postman’s carrion reek clung to the envelopes, disgusting and arousing at the same time, seizing his focus, when three small girls on bikes whizzed past suddenly behind him and one of them rang the bell on her handlebars. Startled, caught off guard, he whirled to stare after them, their blur of motion triggering his prey drive.

His control already shaky and further compromised by the blood smell flooding his senses, he felt the sudden hot surge and flash of pain as his involuntary _woge_ overwhelmed him before he could catch himself, fur sprouting from his skin, muscle and bone reassembling, teeth extending into fangs, ears grown long and pointed, deadly talons emerging from his hands. Reflexively sniffing after the departing “prey”, he _saw red_.

And in that moment, his predator senses heightened by the _woge_ , he caught the motion of someone crashing through the trees at the park’s edge across the street, coming to an abrupt halt at the top of the small embankment.

His glowing eyes shifted to the potential threat; he could feel the man’s intense stare. But no human could see a stage one _woge_ …except this one.

The dark-haired man across the street _did_ see. And as their eyes met, Monroe stared into the dreaded, heart-of-darkness black void eyes of a Grimm, focused directly on him.

 _Oh, god – oh, god oh god oh god!_ His heart seized with shock, then terror. He shook off his _woge_ and belatedly started to run for his door, but the Grimm leaped down the embankment and sprinted across the street after him.

Monroe rushed to the house as fast as he could, with a wave of panic as he heard the Grimm’s footsteps overtaking him. He was one step from the threshold when the man leapt on him, tackling him backward through his doorway and slamming him down against the stairs. The hard edge of a step rammed into his lower back, striking the Blutbad nerve bundle that sent a shock of paralyzing pain through him, leaving him momentarily defenseless.

In that moment, expecting instant death, he had one fleeting thought.

_What the hell was it all for?_

But the Grimm wasn’t killing him, not yet. Pinning him down, face twisted with fury, black roiling eyes reflecting back images of Monroe’s inner Blutbad at his very worst, he seized Monroe by his sweater and shirt and slammed him repeatedly against the stairs shouting, “Where is she? WHERE IS SHE?”

Speechless, Monroe could only stare up at him in terror.

_Where is **who**? _

 

Handcuffed and lying on his side in his doorway in full view of curious neighbors and passers-by, Monroe numbly tried to digest the fact that this Grimm was a police officer while the man called for backup.

“Hank! I’ve got him. We need a team to search the house.” He glanced at the numbers by Monroe’s front door. “Four-eighteen…” He raised a warning eyebrow at the handcuffed man-creature.

“Ravensview,” Monroe managed, voice pained. The paralysis from the blow to his back was beginning to wear off but he didn’t dare stretch to ease the spasms or try to sit up. “Look, whoever you’re after, you’ve got the wrong guy.”

_Unless the Portland police had a special Grimm unit no Wesen ever heard of; yeah, sure, that made sense, Monroe. Focus. Witnesses are good. He probably won’t cut my head off in front of witnesses._

“Ravensview, right on the edge of the park. The boot prints were headed this way. He’s got to have her hidden in the house.” He thumbed off the phone and turned those terrifying eyes back on Monroe.

“Where is she? She better be alive. If you’ve hurt her at all – ”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about!” Monroe protested.

“Cut the crap! I _saw_ what _you_ are, and I know you’ve got her. Snatched her right out of the park on her way home from school!”

Horrified, Monroe realized he was being accused of a child abduction; this couldn’t be much worse. “What? No way! I haven’t been _near_ the park, I’ve been home working all afternoon.”

“Not much of an alibi. We’re going to find her if we have to tear this place apart!“ The man’s dark glare made it clear he meant, “Tear _you_ apart.”

It was almost a relief when Monroe heard the sirens. A blue Dodge Charger roared up and parked diagonally in front of the house, blocking in Monroe’s forlorn yellow Bug sitting in the driveway. The narrow street soon filled with police cruisers, light bars flashing, and plain wrap vehicles.

A broad shouldered African American man in plainclothes, his badge flashing from its strap around his neck, strode from the Charger toward the porch, intercepted on his way by a slender Asian officer with close-cropped hair who’d just emerged from a patrol car.

“Hank, what we got here? Nick make an arrest?”

“Don’t know yet.”

They walked up to the porch together, glancing down at Monroe before turning their attention to the Grimm.

“You find her?” Hank asked.

“Not yet. Holding him till you got here. I haven’t been inside.” He nodded down at Monroe. “He claims he doesn’t know a thing about it, but he’s got to have her stashed in here somewhere.”

Hank moved aside and narrowed his eyes, apparently staring at the soles of Monroe’s boots. He looked pointedly at Nick, then back down at Monroe’s feet.

“He’s had plenty of time to change. We’ll find them in there – I hope without blood on them!”

“Got his ID?” the Asian cop said dryly. “I’ll run him.”

Belatedly the Grimm cop snagged the wallet from Monroe’s back pocket, opened it to his driver’s license and handed it to his uniformed colleague.

“On it.” The officer took the wallet over to his patrol car.

“Look, Nick, your intuition’s pretty good, scary good sometimes,” Hank said, his voice lowered so only the Grimm and Monroe could hear. “But what makes you so sure this is our guy? We can’t chance wasting our time.”

A group of officers trooped up the porch steps and past them into the house, stepping around Monroe. He heard doors opening and closing, boots tramping across his wood floors and up the staircase to the second floor, male and female voices calling out, ”Robin? Robin, are you here? We’re the police!”

“I _know_ it’s him,” the Grimm said. “We’ll find her.”

Hank gave him a measured look, then nodded. “Let’s get him into a car while we look.”

As they pulled Monroe to his feet and marched him down the steps toward the Asian cop’s car, hands cuffed behind his back, he was mortified to see Hal and Muriel, their youngest granddaughter Nicole and the Larsons from the next house over out in their front yards watching. The Asian cop, whose nametag read “Wu”, opened the back door of the cruiser and placed his hand on Monroe’s head, making sure he ducked low enough not to hit the edge of the doorway.

Locked in the back seat of the patrol car, alone and sick with dread, Monroe sat stiffly, staring straight ahead while swarms of police invaded his sanctuary. A uniformed officer stood guard by the car, as if he had any way to break free of the cuffs and make a run for it.

 _Run where, and why? I haven’t done anything! Except be Wesen…oh, my god, they’re going to find my Wesen books!_ He squeezed his eyes shut and mentally shook himself. _Which would mean absolutely nothing to them, except for the Grimm_.

The whole thing took on a blur of unreality as he sat there, captive, while the police ransacked his house. It seemed to go on forever; how many places did they think he had to hide a child? He held himself perfectly still, exerting all his control, humiliated and fearful as he realized more neighbors had gathered outside the police lines to watch and wonder what he’d done.

Muriel and Hal were standing out on the sidewalk now, Nicole huddled against her grandmother and Muriel’s arm around the girl’s shoulders as they witnessed it all. For a brief moment Hal’s eyes met Monroe’s, and the old man lowered his eyebrows. Not sure what else to do, Monroe shrugged the best he could in his cuffs and shook his head in denial and confusion. Hal gave a brief nod and continued watching.

How could this be happening? After years of working so hard to be a good neighbor, cleaning up the one problem house on the street, buying dozens of Girl Scout cookies and fundraiser chocolate bars he was never going to eat, enduring block parties he found socially excruciating and hosting the best Halloween house the neighbors had ever seen, his carefully cultivated “nice guy” reputation was now in shambles.

His gut clenched with that realization. _The whole neighborhood will be thinking I’m some kind of pervy ex-con who’s been living here under false pretenses. I’ll have to sell up and move, probably have to leave Portland – if the Grimm by some remote chance lets me live_.

_The guy’s a cop and a Grimm. How the hell does that work? He must pursue his other vocation when he’s off-duty. Which is not good news for me…._

But surely, even as disconnected as he was, he’d have heard rumors that there was a for-real Grimm here in Portland! At the Wesen bars, at least, or through the grapevine from his support group at Helvetia Tavern?

 _Maybe he’s just hit town, and I’m the lucky one to first get his attention_.

But that didn’t quite fit, either. By now, with way too much time to think about his disastrous predicament, Monroe figured out that his nemesis wasn’t an undercover cop, he was a full-on a detective, about thirty, and apparently an established member of the Police Bureau. _So not likely a recent arrival._

But given the number of Wesen among the criminal elements in Portland, surely some would have encountered him by now in his professional capacity, and word of a Grimm in the city would spread like _fluvus pestilentia_.

_Maybe it hasn’t been all that long since he got his Grimm on? When is it supposed to hit them, adolescence like us? Do any of us even know for sure? I thought they were nearly extinct!_

There was new commotion on the porch. Some of the search team seemed to be leaving. Monroe shifted his eyes toward the house without turning his head. The Grimm was in animated and obviously unhappy conversation with the other detective, the one named Hank, who seemed to be his senior in some way. The older man had the Grimm – Nick, they’d called him – by the shoulder and was pulling him out the front door, shaking his head and looking dubious about whatever the Grimm was saying.

Even with his enhanced Blutbad hearing, Monroe could only catch fragments of the detectives’ conversation. _I wish this car’s windows were open even a crack...._

But Hank’s body language telegraphed that he was not buying whatever argument the Grimm was making. Monroe shifted his eyes forward again as Nick raised his head to look past Hank’s shoulder toward the patrol car he was sitting in. Their heated discussion went on for another minute; then the older detective strode off the porch and went to his car, shaking his head.

Furious, Nick watched his partner go and turned to glare at Monroe sitting in the cruiser. This time, feeling his glare, Monroe dared to turn his head slowly and look directly at him, meeting his eyes, keeping his expression unreadable. The Grimm held their eye contact a moment, a this-isn’t-over stare, then stormed off after Hank.

Now the rest of the search team was coming out of his house, dispersing to various vehicles, clusters of them conferring then moving apart. The Asian officer, Wu, approached the car and opened Monroe’s door, standing aside to let Monroe out.

“Sorry for the inconvenience. With a missing child, we have to thoroughly investigate every lead.” Wu unlocked Monroe’s handcuffs as he got stiffly out of the car.

“I can go?”

“You can go. Nothing on your record, no evidence to hold you. But if you see or think of anything that might help us find her, call me.” He offered Monroe his card – Sergeant Drew Wu, Portland Police Bureau.

“Uh…sure.”

_Inconvenience?!?_

The Grimm was still glaring at him darkly from where he stood by the blue Charger as Monroe made his way gingerly through the other departing officers back to his house. Monroe averted his eyes from Nick’s baleful hunter’s stare, feeling those black eyes following his every move.

He stepped into a maelstrom of chaos – his cherished safehouse thoroughly violated, drawers and cabinets opened, their contents disturbed, sofa and chair cushions tossed on the floor, storage trunk and cedar chest emptied, even his workshop left in disarray.

_What, they expected to find her in little metal drawers full of star wheels and lift pins?_

In shock, Monroe closed the front door behind him and locked it – for all the good that would do when the Grimm inevitably came back to get him.

He wandered through his home overwhelmed by the disorder and feeling deeply violated. His refuge had been breached and despoiled, his person assaulted, threatened and humiliated, his reputation smeared. He’d done absolutely nothing to deserve such treatment, except be recognized as Wesen by a Grimm who happened to be a cop searching for someone, or some _thing,_ who’d kidnapped a local schoolgirl.

Easy prey, sweet and tender, to the wrong kind of Blutbad. Monroe felt outrage rising that he’d been profiled and accused of a heinous crime that even at his worst, he would never commit – the killing of a child.

Harassing and terrorizing stray backpackers and illegal pot farmers deep in the forest for fun, sure, there had been times, or taking down other Wesen intruding on his, _their_ territory. Yeah, back then. But never a helpless child, human or Wesen. Not even Angelina went that far – not out of compassion, but for the lack of sport.

Anger surged, burning hotter and hotter, setting off his inner alarms. _Seeing red_ , he felt the involuntary eye _woge_ and struggled against the surge. His face rippled with the first flash of pain; his hands sprouted dark hairs and claws.

His therapy kicking in, he took a slow, deep breath. _Can’t let this escalate – I need to calm down **now**_ **.** With fierce effort he shook off the woge and stood there in the middle of his ransacked living room, breathing hard. Marshalling all of his will, he made himself sit down cross-legged on the edge of the carpet and spread his palms flat on the floor to ground the dangerous energy and start the meditative process he’d learned and practiced myriad times in rehab and all the years since – though it’d been a long time since he’d needed to use it.

It took a good twenty moments of intense focus to work through the whole threat/attack stimulus and response, reality check and coping process, isolating and visualizing the violent energy discharging from his palms and body down through the floor and into the receptive cool earth below, all the while concentrating on his breathing and releasing any tension he found in his body. _Let it go, let it go…ground and center_.

At last he was able to sit there and quietly, rationally contemplate his situation and decide his next steps without flying into an uncontrolled _woged_ rage.

He got up and began a room-by-room assessment of the damage. Despite the chaos nothing appeared to be broken, which was a surprise and relief. He steeled himself on his way upstairs to face what they’d done to the spare room and his bedroom, his inner sanctum.

It did little to prepare him for the shock of finding his bed stripped to the mattress, flipped over and tipped off the edge of the box springs, the bedclothes in a heap on the floor with the naked pillows. They had rifled through his closets, of course; the bedroom and its small sitting room by the fireplace had been thoroughly disassembled, clothes and books and personal belongings scattered everywhere.

His own bed, and even the bed _where his parents slept_ when they visited, left stripped and askew; all the bedding and contents of his laundry hamper dumped on the floor and spread around. Taking this all in, he nearly lost it again.

 _Looking for bloodstains, were they?_ His eyes blazed red and nostrils flared at the intruders’ scents and violation of his private spaces, but he made himself unclench his fists and suppress the angry _woge_.

The folding ladder was still extended down from the attic; he climbed it and poked his head up into the dusty gloom. All the boxes, trunks and cabinets had been opened, the shelves disturbed.

 _Well, why not if they believed I’d kidnapped a small child? Stuffed her in a box, locked her in an old steamer trunk…._ His inhuman growl rumbled deep in his throat. He knew it would be the same everywhere – the garage workbench and tool cabinets, his car, everything had been searched and left in outraged disorder.

Climbing down, he shoved the ladder back up and closed the attic hatch before returning to his bedroom. Might as well start there, his most personal space.

The medicine cabinet in his bathroom hung open, his prescriptions and supplements scattered over the counter top. He felt a slight sardonic smile twist his mouth at that. _Wonder what the hell they made of those?_

He went in to assess the damage. At least they hadn’t dumped out the medications, though they’d opened the bottles to inspect the contents. Some were legitimate prescription meds filled at his local Rite-Aid; the others were an assortment of herbal blends, minerals and essential oils compounded by Wesen apothecaries working with Doctor Kramer’s clinic, most of which had little, or poisonous, effect on human physiology but tremendous impact on his Blutbad biochemistry.

 _Thank God they didn’t trash or confiscate my meds or I’d be in serious trouble; it’s not like I can just run out and replace some of that stuff off the shelf anywhere._ Some of the medications needed to be tapered off slowly, adjusted in increments, and with others even one or two missed doses could seriously impair his self-control.

He gave a deep, resigned sigh, his shoulders slumped at the daunting tasks before him. _Got to start somewhere, and this is the most important._ He started capping and replacing each medication in its proper place in the medicine cabinet.

 

He had just remade his bed with fresh sheets and pillowcases and restored order to his bedroom and upstairs bathroom when he heard a firm knock on his front door.

Warily he made his way down the stairs, moving silently, inhaling deeply to discern who or what was at his door now. Midway down the steps he stopped, surprised.

The Neilsons?

He opened the door to them, heart sinking, expecting the worst.

Hal looked over his shoulder into the ransacked living room, a room where they’d shared coffee and Muriel’s baked goodies and even a few times, a beer with their solitary neighbor.

“Damn, Monroe – they sure did a number on you. What the hell was that all about?”

Monroe stood staring at them with his mouth fallen open a bit in surprise, until Muriel prompted gently, “May we come in, dear?”

He stood aside, still speechless, as his kindly – and admittedly, nosy neighbors walked past him, surveying the disaster area that had been his orderly home.

Finding his voice and at first stammering a little, he heard himself saying, “They…mistook me for someone else. Apparently I look like some guy they believe kidnapped a little girl up in our park on her way home from school.”

“But that’s ridiculous!” Muriel burst out, her blue eyes snapping with indignation for him. “How could they possibly suspect _you?_ ”

The cold fist of dread clenched in Monroe’s chest suddenly eased; he found that he could breathe again. “A detective canvassing the neighborhood saw me out by my mailbox and decided I was their suspect. I didn’t know who he was, just some guy who came out of nowhere and ran out of the park at me; he didn’t say he was police. I tried to get back in the house but he tackled me through my front door and put me in handcuffs. I had no idea what was going on; scared the hell out me.”

”Well, who wouldn’t be scared?” Muriel said, moving closer to lay a sympathetic hand on his arm. “What did he say to you?”

“He kept yelling, ‘ _Where is she, I know you’ve got her_ ’, and I told him I didn’t know what he was talking about, he had the wrong guy. But he wouldn’t listen, demanded that I prove where I was between three and four today and of course I couldn’t. I was just here alone, working as usual, no witnesses.”

“Your car’s been in the driveway since lunch time. We can see it from our upstairs windows,” Hal said. “We can tell them that, maybe that would help.”

Monroe sighed and shook his head. “Doubt it. From what I gather from their questioning and what I overheard, this little girl was walking home from school and never showed up. Some kids saw her cut through the park, our park right up the slope, so if I’d been the kidnapper, I wouldn’t have needed to drive.”

“Dammit!” Hal swore. “Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?”

"That’s why they had to let him go, dear,” Muriel said gently.

Hal shook his head sharply, brows lowered, lips pressed tightly.

“At least the sergeant who let me out of the car sort of apologized ‘for the inconvenience’,” Monroe said morosely, looking around at the disheveled rooms. “Man, there’s an understatement.”

“The upstairs, too?” Muriel asked with sympathy.

“Oh, yeah, even worse. And the attic, the garage, my car…they were thorough, I’ll give them that. Our tax dollars at work.” He was starting to feel better, a bit more his old self, comforted by his neighbors’ outrage on his behalf. He sighed again, releasing some of his anger. “I guess from their point of view they’re just doing their jobs. And it _is_ a little girl who’s missing.”

“But why waste so much time on you?” Hal asked. “It doesn’t make sense!”

“Apparently I fit some kind of profile for creeps like that – live alone, never married, kinda solitary, no one to give me a solid alibi. The detective who nailed me insisted I had to be their guy, I fit the profile and live right by the park. But they didn’t find anything, of course, and my record’s clean, so they had to let me go. He still thinks I did it, but the other detective, I don’t know if he’s the guy’s partner or supervisor or what, pulled him off and made some remark about the only way they’d get me in court was if I ‘sued their ass’.”

He surveyed the damage again. “Tempting, but I sure don’t need any more trouble. They’ve already destroyed my reputation in the neighborhood. No one will ever let their kids trick-or-treat here again.” He was surprised how much that thought hurt his heart and pressed his lips tightly together against an upwelling of sadness.

“The hell with that!” Hal snorted. “Don’t you worry, we’ll see that everybody gets the straight story right away. You just hold your head up and go about your business like nothing happened.”

“Exactly!” Muriel agreed. “You’ll see, dear, this will blow over in no time. It could’ve happened to anybody.” She scanned the room, lips pursed in disapproval. “They didn’t have to leave everything torn up like this! Was all that really necessary? Could we help you put things back together?”

“Ah, thanks, really, but…” He stopped helplessly, not sure how to explain without sounding ungrateful and help rejecting.

“’Course not,” Hal said, “we know you have a precise place for everything and keep everything in its place. Occupational hazard, I bet, with all those tiny parts and pieces to keep track of.” He had been impressed when he’d hired Monroe to clean and service his beloved Cartier and asked if he could watch.

“True, lifelong habit. My mom insisted on keeping every corner of our house in perfect order,” Monroe acknowledged.

“She brought you up well,” Muriel said with approval. “I’m not at all surprised to hear that about Alice.”

“My dad, too. His workshop looks like a hospital surgery…for clocks, anyway.”

The older couple laughed, having met Monroe’s parents on their regular visits staying with their West Coast son.

“Well, at least don’t give a thought to dinner. You’ve got more than enough to do putting your house back in order. I’m bringing over a casserole,” Muriel said. “It’s the least we can do.”

Monroe’s throat tightened a moment in gratitude. “You’ve done more than you know already,” he told them, standing there awkwardly, his arms loose at his sides. “I was afraid I’d have to leave the neighborhood, that everyone would suspect....”

“Don’t you dare even think such a thing!” Muriel burst out. “You’re the best neighbor we ever had, you brought peace and quiet back to our block. I never have to worry when the kids play outside, knowing you’re next door keeping an eye on things.” Impulsively she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him in a maternal hug.

Hal clapped him solidly on the shoulder. “What she said!”

Monroe hesitated then raised his arms, gingerly returning Muriel’s hug. ( _Was that the right response?_ he wondered.) He nodded to Hal and blinked back a surprised sting of tears. “You guys are the best. I really appreciate it...everything.”

_But if you had any idea why the Grimm cop insisted it was me…._

“Well, we’d better let you get to it, then,” Hal said, releasing Monroe from the kind awkwardness of Muriel’s hug as he took his petite wife’s arm and guided her toward the front door, his hand fondly covering hers.

Muriel paused on the threshold. “I’ll call you when I’m ready to bring over that casserole. No meat, I remember.”

“Thank you,” Monroe said, brown eyes deeply sincere. “ _So_ much.”

Closing the door behind them, he gazed at its vaguely Art Deco glass panel and had another horrified thought.

What if the custom stained glass he’d commissioned in exchange for creating a clock for the artist had already been installed? With its colorful stylized forest design surrounding a brown wolf _rampant_ on a shield in its center – he knew only too well what the Grimm would deduce from that.

The Grimm. Monroe considered what little he knew of him while picking up the cushions, books, magazines and memorabilia strewn around his living room and restoring them to their rightful places.

What was with this guy, anyway? How could he actually be a cop, a detective even? That meant he had to live here in Portland and have some solid time in with the police force. There hadn’t been so much as a whisper about such a thing in the Wesen community; not that Monroe was tied in that closely, but he had his network of old friends from before his reformed days, business associates and fellow travelers from the recovery program, Blutbaden, Löwen, Jägerbars, Wildermanner, even Drang-Zorns who shared their struggles to stay on the wieder path.

_Something as radical as the presence of a real-life, actual Grimm would surely send shock waves through the eco-tone; how could the busy-body Mellifers have missed this? And damn it, why did I get to be the first one to find out?_

This Grimm was obviously eager to continue his ancestors’ ruthless heritage of persecuting Wesen – any Wesen, bad actors toward the Kehrseiten or not.

The dangerous thought struck him – _what if the child-snatcher was Wesen?_ But why kidnap her, why not just rip her to pieces and eat the best parts, as the more lurid media had plastered all over the Internet about that Reed College coed attacked on the woodland trail? That resonated as a Wesen-style attack, not the disappearance of a child; she was more likely to be taken by a very human kind of monster.

Monroe shuddered at the thought of what had happened – might still be happening, to the helpless little girl who was missing. He forced those horrific thoughts from his mind. There was nothing he could do about it.

But this Grimm suddenly showing up now – where had he come from? There hadn’t been any Wesen murders or disappearances, at least not unexplained ones. The creature community knew pretty much who did what to whom among themselves. If a Grimm had been hunting in the city, or even in the whole Pacific Northwest, rumors would have spread like wildfire.

 _Well, maybe like lightning_ , he revised the thought, _wildfires not being so much a thing in temperate rainforest Portland except maybe during the relatively rainless summertime._ He sighed and half-smiled at himself. _There I go again, over-intellectualizing, even about this. But maybe that’s a good sign._

_Still…maybe, just maybe, he hasn’t been an active Grimm for long? Not long enough for his vigilante work to be noticed, for enough Wesen to suddenly disappear?_

_A Grimm newbie. could that be it?_ He shook his head at the thought. _Not if it hits them in adolescence like us; the guy had to be around thirty._

Or, wasn’t there some other trigger he’d heard stories about…?

Monroe shook his head slowly, mind working the problem as he methodically put his kitchen back in order. _I am definitely going to have a cold brew when Muriel brings her casserole over. Wine won’t cut it tonight._ He felt a warm wave of gratitude at that thought; the Neilsons were standing by him, believed in him utterly, never gave the alternative a second thought. _Wow_.

Sliding his kitchen knives back into their places, he grinned to himself remembering the first time Muriel and Hal had met his parents. The very day he’d told his mom that the spare room was ready to accommodate guests, Alice had booked airline reservations; she and Bart could hardly wait to see their son’s new house in person, having impatiently followed his renovations through the e-mailed pictures he sent them.

The Neilsons had taken to his parents immediately, delighted to find that their eccentric bachelor neighbor’s family were such normal, cordial, easy to like New Englanders, Alice warm and gracious, Bart blunt and opinionated – Hal had embraced him immediately as a kindred spirit.

They’d even invited Monroe and his parents over for beers and barbecue one night of their first two-week stay, grilling thick sirloins for everyone. Forthright as always, Hal had asked Bart directly, “You like your red meat red or well done?” to which Bart had answered, “Hell, it’s overdone if it’s not still mooing!” which Hal thought was a marvelous response…having no clue that Bart was serious.

Little did the Neilsons know that just after dark the first night of their stay, the three Blutbaden had cleared Monroe’s back fence and swarmed down into the forest, out for an exhilarating hunt, and just after midnight Alice had brought down a deer.

 _Legs first so the prey can’t escape_ , she’d always taught him, though he and his dad favored the go-for-the-throat strategy in the heat of the chase. Probably why Alice’s kill-per-pounce successes tended to exceed theirs a bit, quick and efficient. _Whereas Angelina preferred to play rough with her prey before killing it._

Monroe shook his head again, shoving out those fond but dangerous memories. _Okay, focus, dude! It’ll be dark soon, and you know damn well he’s all but certain to come back after you, cop or no cop. So, what are you going to do if he does?_

True to her word, Muriel called him just after twilight and brought over her casserole, still hot from the oven so she wore her oven mitts. Monroe looked down at it gratefully, feeling his stomach rumble in anticipation as he smelled the rich garlic and cheese aromas of her eggplant parmesan, star of many a block party and potluck for their polling place volunteers. “Volunteers” using the term loosely – Muriel had roped him into that early on since she knew he didn’t have to report to a day job. The Neilson house had long been the polling place for their precinct to the point that local kids called it “the voting house”.

They went through their ritual exchange over Muriel’s food gifts, Monroe thanking her and promising to bring the Pyrex pan back clean tomorrow, Muriel telling him not to rush, bring it back whenever is convenient. _If I still have a head on my shoulders_ , he thought morbidly this time.

He would of course return it with a food gift of his own, something their grandkids would like. The whole family was chocoholics, so raspberry fudge brownies, or maybe pudding cake. _If I live long enough to bake it...stop it, Monroe! That’s definitely not helping._

“The house is looking better already,” she said, sliding past him to deliver her casserole safely to the kitchen and have a better look around.

“I’ve been at it all afternoon. Can’t get any work done in all this mess.” He followed her into the kitchen where she set the pan on the top of his stove. “This really helps. I won’t have to cook and clean up after dinner, and I just realized I’m famished. This smells so good.”

“One of my standards, and I remember how you’ve always liked it.” She started toward the door. “Good night then, dear, enjoy. Don’t stay up too late; after all this, you need a good night’s sleep.”

“Yes, _mother_ ,” he teased her, smiling at her broad wink as she stepped out onto the porch.

“We can see when the lights are on downstairs and in your bedroom!” she called back on her way down the steps.

“That’s a little unsettling,” he said to the closed door as she made her way across the front yard toward her house. “They keep that much of an eye on me? Kind of stalker-ish if well-meaning.” Not much chance of getting a wink of sleep tonight, though. Not with a Grimm on the hunt for him.

He shuddered and went to set the table, making the mistake of turning the evening news on the living room flat screen to catch up on the doings of the outside world. The screen filled with a photo of the missing schoolgirl and her name, Robin Howell, as reporters interviewed a police captain about the Bureau’s lack of progress finding her. One asked if the case might have any connection with the murdered college student but the captain said there was nothing linking the two crimes at this time. He urged the public to be alert and report anything that might help them find Robin. The station cut to a cluster of reporters at Robin’s house, shoving microphones and cameras in the faces of the child’s distraught mother and grandfather.

Monroe clicked the remote and the screen went black. This was even worse now that he knew the child’s name and had seen her picture, fragile smiling little thing. Keeping his long-established rule about no TV during meals, especially the news – a bad habit and certainly not good for the digestion, not to mention the risk of crumbs between the couch cushions or spills on the coffee table, he finally opened that cold beer, tossed together a green salad and cut a large square of the casserole. _So I won’t stay vegan tonight, a cheese binge won’t kill me. And it’s possibly my last meal._

Settling down to his food, the stray thought crossed his mind that maybe the college runner had been Wesen. _Had the Grimm…? No, not their style._

Not the way she’d been dismembered and partially eaten, as the less-than-respectable media had reported. That practically screamed Wesen. The Grimm ought to be going after whoever did that, if he was any good at his calling; he’d have to be suspicious about that killing.

His stomach constricted. _Or maybe he believes I did that, too; being Blutbad is proof enough_.

Unable to stop the fearful train of thoughts as he ate, he wondered what to do if the Grimm showed up tonight. _Would he break in and attack me, cut off my head in my own bed? Make me vanish so no one will ever find my body? He’s not that big a guy. Would I have a decent chance to take him in a fight? Maybe not, if I’m on my meds_.

There was a time…but he’d intentionally stayed far away from any likely violent confrontations for years now. He wasn’t sure of his own strength and speed any more. The heavy meds and meatless diet had even affected his _woge_ ; his teeth didn’t grow as large and fierce and his claws not as sharp and strong as before.

It was time for his evening doses, supposed to be taken with meals. _Maybe it’d be wise to hold off a bit. If this goes down, I’ll need my Blutbad edge. This is no time to suppress the wolf when I might need to call on my wild side to fight for my life!_

But it had been so long since he’d been in touch with that primal, violent power so intricately entwined with his human genes, his dual psyche. Would he be able to control it? Would he be able to draw on that fearsome strength and not lose himself in his beast?

Monroe looked down at the remains of his dinner. It hadn’t always been this way. His family had raised him and his many cousins to mainstream among the Kehrseiten, keeping their Blutbad proclivities off the humans’ radar, expressing their Otherness only among themselves and to a lesser degree, other Wesen. They released their wild side only on the hunt or in very controlled self-defense…or offense, depending on circumstances.

 _The wolf has to run_ , they taught their children. _It needs to hunt, taste the blood, devour the flesh of the chosen prey. But never humans, not in any way that could expose our secrets. And each of you must learn to control your inner beast. You must never lose yourself in its insatiable hungers, its craving to hunt and kill with maximum violence and mayhem._

But after losing his cherished high school girlfriend Molly, after all the years away at college, he’d found himself at loose ends and out of touch with his lupine nature. His Blutbad “friend with benefits” roommate Bronwyn had returned home to Minnesota after graduation from Brown to step into her family’s business as the heir apparent. His own family expected the same from him.

He’d been cooped up in classrooms and dorms so long, immersed in study and surrounded by mostly Kehrseiten students and life in major cities, only expressing his Other self on brief holidays back home, hunting the familiar New Hampshire mountains and forests with his family packs and a few high school friends. So long suppressed, his inner Blutbad howled to be free.

He closed his eyes and tilted his head back, savoring the memories. It had felt so good to leave the too-civilized academic world behind, reintegrate with his Wesen self and run, old school, barefooted and fully _woged_ , feeling the rocks and moss and fallen leaves rush away under his clawed feet, branches and leaves brushing past his face, sliding off his fur, running fast, faster for the sheer joy of being out there in the wild. To scent and track and bring down the prey. To sink his claws and sharp, shearing teeth into the warm flesh and swallow the rich, hot, meaty blood.

He’d indulged enough with his family and friends after graduation that summer to feel restored to his full self again. But Halfmoon Lake, population just under 8,000, had grown too small and provincial for him, and he chafed at still living under his parents’ roof and working under his uncles’ and aunt’s supervision, much as he loved his clocks.

It was time to make a bold move and strike out on a new life of his own, somewhere completely different.

And so, Portland.

It had been great for the first years, getting established, making new friends, starting work on his bungalow. Hunting was just another thing he did, like a lot of outdoorsy people in the region. Only he and Ned and Sam and their other Blutbad friends did it without guns or other weapons, returning from their backcountry trips with field dressed provisions – whatever they hadn’t wolfed down in gobbets at the kill or later around the campfire with plenty of beer.

 _Good times. That’s how I met Hap Lasser, when he tagged along for the fun with Ned on Mount Hood that time. And then, through Hap – Angelina_.

He’d never known anyone like her. Her feral beauty, her wild sense of fun, her who-gives-a-damn attitude and relentless sexual appetite, soon focused to his shock and delighted surprise on him, the nerdy watchmaker intellectual his friends were always teasing. It was so seductive, so addictive. He’d become obsessed with her, with running; sex and blood had become so completely entwined he could seldom think of one without the other, and for Angelina there could never be enough.

His own cravings grew the more they indulged, giving themselves over to the call of the wild. He spent less and less time on his business and repairing the house, more and more time off in the woods with Angelina. He tried not to notice and even felt annoyed when he saw Hal Neilson’s deep frown as Angelina roared up to the house on her motorcycle and lured him away for another wild night, or weekend, or…he began to lose track of how many days.

He rarely saw Sam and Ned any more. He mostly hung out with Angelina and Hap, getting raucous and closing the less savory Wesen bars from Forest Grove to Troutdale several nights a week. She was a shameless flirt and there were often fights, not that she needed him to get her out of unwelcome situations. But his wolf was jealous, proud that other men desired his woman but furious when they tried to respond to her flirtations. His emotions more and more on edge, he realized in his sober moments that this was all going too far; he needed to rein it in. He barely recognized himself and his old life any more.

And then she persuaded him to take a month off with her in the Cascades.

 _Woged_ and wild, living out in the elements, they indulged their lusts so long and so far, he began waking up with blood in his mouth and no memory of what they’d done the night before. After losing time for days at a stretch, unable to identify or account for the bloody remains of their kills surrounding them when he returned to consciousness, he could no longer deny the deadly symptoms of the _Umkippen_ in both of them.

It was only after that last traumatic incident, branded forever on his soul, that he knew he had to leave the forest, leave Angelina, and find help before it was too late.

Monroe steeled himself against the horrific memory and quickly blocked its confused, chaotic images, a hallucination that had proven all too real by the light of day when he realized what they’d done. There could be no going back if they’d ever been discovered. He would bear the guilt and horror of that night to his grave, and could only hope it wouldn’t follow him beyond.

Recoiling from the painful memories of Angelina, Monroe firmly closed off that line of thought and made himself focus on the present, on his deadly predicament. First the postman’s blatant challenge, aggression possibly stoked by his recent kill, and now, even more seriously, the Grimm.

Something stirred in his troubled mind. _Could there be some weird connection?_

His disturbed forebodings since he woke this morning, the reek of potent death the postman exuded, the disappearance of the little girl that led the Grimm to Monroe’s door? Clearly the Grimm was hunting the wrong Wesen; Monroe at last admitted to himself that he knew only too well the gruesome, enticing scent of the postman’s recent feast. It was no forest creature, nor urban animal of the four-legged variety.

It was human. But not fresh, not killed today. The postman had taken someone else, possibly from the hordes of homeless living on Portland’s streets, in the wooded parks and the industrial wastelands bordering the river.

The horrible thought hit him – possibly even the Reed College coed.

If the Kehrseiten only knew, the postman was a far more likely suspect than Monroe. But there was no way they could know what he was or even smell the evidence.

_Was it even possible to reason with a Grimm?_

Slowly he finished his casserole and salad and downed the rest of his beer, lost in forlorn strategies to somehow avoid his near-certain fate.

Rising from the table, he put the food away and cleaned the kitchen barely aware of what he was doing. Filling a water glass, he automatically started toward the downstairs bathroom where he kept his evening meds, then paused in its doorway facing his reflection in the vanity mirror. On impulse he _woged_ and stared at his Blutbad self, red eyes flashing, baring his jagged teeth and flexing his claws.

_Had this maybe-newbie Grimm ever faced any Wesen as formidable as a Blutbad? If not, it sure didn’t slow him much this afternoon, rushing and taking me down alone and unarmed, or at least not drawing a weapon._

He released his _woge_ and went to open the medicine cabinet, regarding the array of glass and plastic bottles, some holding liquids with droppers, some solid tablets and others with oddly colored powders or finely crushed herbs filling clear gelatin capsules.

It was quite the Wesen psychopharmacology array, not as heavy-duty as the drugs they gave him when he’d first entered the wieder rehab program – that stuff had him nearly zombied-out the first few weeks while he was an inpatient struggling to regain control of his _woge_ , and his mind. But if anything happened to make him miss or delay some of these meds, he could certainly feel the difference in his control, and his thinking.

 _So maybe if I take the stuff that helps keep me rational, but forgo the ones that damp down my energy and strength…and I sure as hell don’t need the mood suppressants, I’m feeling depressed and morbid enough already_.

The euphoria of releasing his inner call of the wild was addictive, seductive, its own special high – and therefore something he studiously avoided, keeping that aspect of himself walled off, sublimated, rigidly controlled.

Yet tonight for the first time in many years, he might well need access to that primal power to survive. Cautiously, he selected four of the medications but left three others on the shelf.

In his distress, he forgot about the full moon rising again tonight and the extra pull it would have on his Blutbad urgings.

 

Monroe paced through the silent house, erratic energy singing through his nerves, his senses heightened by the anticipated threat and some of his midday medications wearing off. He listened intently for any change in the usual nighttime sounds in the neighborhood, the park across the street, the forest downhill from his back yard, while his mind raced imagining scenarios where he encountered the Grimm and survived – or didn’t.

_How much blood would he risk leaving behind when my disappearance led to some kind of investigation? At least the Neilsons would notice I was gone, especially after what happened today. Maybe I should call my parents – no, that would just be cruel; there’s nothing they could do from so far away but worry, and it’s after midnight there._

_Is this Grimm the traditional kind who goes straight for decapitation, or would he just shoot me? He probably wouldn’t risk any neighbors hearing gunshots…unless he used a silencer._

Monroe shuddered. _There’d be no chance to try reason if this Nick guy was the “shoot first, don’t ask later” type_. He hadn’t seen any doubt or question in the Grimm’s dark glare this afternoon.

And yet the man was functioning as a cop, a detective, in a city with an unusually large and diverse Wesen population. _Surely he couldn’t hunt and kill everyone in Portland who happened to be Wesen, whether or not they’d ever broken any laws. Jaywalking? Parking tickets? Not recycling properly?_

_Had any Grimms and Wesen ever tried diplomacy, or even sat down with a beer to talk things over? Historically some of them had worked with and, notoriously, for the Royals, for god’s sake, as did the Verrat – did the Grimms give Verrat loyalists a pass for serving their human masters?_

_And if I could somehow slow him down long enough to talk, is there the slightest chance he’d even be able and willing to consider the idea of a peaceful Wesen, a wieder Wesen? Do any Grimms know there are such things? Would they care?_

_How the hell would I start that conversation? Pin him to the floor and say, “Hey, dude, chill a second – can we talk?”_

At that ludicrous image, Monroe shook his head and wondered if maybe he should have taken the rest of his meds.

As the evening ticked slowly by, he forced himself to stop pacing and catastrophizing, realizing it wasn’t doing his nerves any good. Stilling his mind and body, he noticed he was hungry again, craving something sweet. That partial can of blueberries in heavy syrup left over from yesterday’s blintzes called to him and he went to the fridge to retrieve it, snagging a spoon on his way to his workroom.

Once there, he opened the curtains and sheers for a good view of the street; best to see whatever was coming, if the Grimm was bold enough to approach the front of the house.

The disemboweled anniversary clock tugged at his attention while he spooned blueberries into his mouth. _Might as well die doing something I love as pacing the floor uselessly._ He picked up some tweezers and bent to remove some brass parts for cleaning.

Unknown to him, the Grimm was watching from the shadowy trees at the edge of the park across the street, the chill breeze carrying his scent back into the park and away from Monroe’s house and sensitive nose.

 

Monroe poked at the clock for a while, trying and failing to focus on it. Along with obsessive worry about the Grimm stalking him, stray thoughts about the postman’s startling challenge and vile feeding habits intruded on him.

_What if he’s decided to act on our remote family connection and try to make contact with me, maybe thinking we’d get a murderous pack thing going? Maybe he’d heard about me running wild with Angelina, but not that I’d gone straight for years since. Or maybe, having seriously gone off the rails already, feeding on Kehrseiten, he’d want to eliminate any remotely possible Blutbad competition for territory?_

_Well, the hell with that!_

This was at least something he could act on, and right now. With all the recent rain, his territorial markings would be somewhat diluted. _Easy enough to remedy that_.

He abruptly left his workroom and headed for the kitchen, where he dumped the blueberry can and his empty IPA bottle from dinner into the recycle bin.

“Time to unload that beer,” he told himself aloud.

He opened the kitchen door and stood for a moment, sniffing the damp night air for any intruder scents, then trotted down the steps to the driveway and out into the back yard. Striding through the wet grass and under trees still dripping from the latest drizzle, he headed for the back fence that bordered the forest access beyond, the most likely direction any Wesen invader would take.

He unzipped and directed his stream along the fence boards, stepping to the right as he marked and including his patch of wolfsbane, telling himself it could use a little extra nitrogen. The tall, slender stems with their pale yellow hooded blossoms had faded and died back over a month ago, but the dense mound of ragged-edged palmate leaves remained lush and green.

Then the breeze shifted slightly and he caught the scent of the Grimm wafting from his side yard, just past the chimney.

Instincts surged in alarm; resisting panic, he zipped up and walked quickly back to the kitchen stairway, ran up the stairs and into the house, locking the door behind him. He went to the breaker panel and shut down all the power, hoping darkness would serve in his favor.

He gave a quick thought to the Neilsons and hoped fervently they weren’t watching his house now; all the lights going out at once would cue Hal to call or come over offering to help. With any luck they had all gone to bed, and wouldn’t hear whatever was about to happen.

Moving silently to the window next to the fireplace, he looked down at the dark-haired man skulking along the side of the house, heading back toward the street – or Monroe’s porch. Would the Grimm be blatant enough to break in the front door or windows, so visible from the street? Not that there was any traffic on their cul-de-sac this time of night, and no one would be hanging out at the park where they could see.

Was it even possible to reason with a Grimm intent on his execution?

He felt the moonlight glow on his face through the window, second night of the full moon – the strongest night. His wolf surged within, strengthened by the moon’s influence and his own powerful emotions: anger, fear…and a morbid curiosity. It would be fight, not flight.

_Fuck that! I will not be the hunted in my own home. I will not be prey, hiding and running. This ends now, tonight. We talk this out - or one of us dies._

He watched the Grimm crouch and sneak along the side yard, furtive and alarmed, obviously certain his prey knew he was there after the house had suddenly gone dark. He didn’t appear to have a weapon; there was nothing in his hands. Suddenly he didn’t look so imposing to the Blutbad who seethed with anger at the violation of his home and person by this man.

Nerves singing, adrenaline surging, Monroe let the rush of his wild side overtake him. He _woged_ and launched himself through the glass of his living room window….

**_…and into a wondrous new life._ **

 


End file.
